


The Lucky Old Lady

by ktyxdovahkiin



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Argonians (Elder Scrolls), Bravil (Elder Scrolls), Dark Brotherhood (Elder Scrolls) - Freeform, Shadowscales, The Great War (Elder Scrolls)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25068361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktyxdovahkiin/pseuds/ktyxdovahkiin
Summary: This is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince" for the Elder Scrolls universe.Hail to Sithis, blood's drop on blade's edge.Before you, nothing. Behind you, the Void.Catalyst, agitator, many-fanged maw.Whisper your need to the Scales.-- Inscription found on an Argonian blade
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	The Lucky Old Lady

**Author's Note:**

> "There are many ways to change oneself, of course. Some travel to far off lands, taking in a new culture and lifestyle. Others choose to practice a new craft, woodworkers turned warriors, tailors turned egg-tenders. But others feel they need an even deeper change in their life, and so require the aid of the Hist. They are those who have chosen to change their gender.
> 
> Something deep within these individuals calls for them to undergo this change. I do not know if it is the Hist's will, or simply their own. But always I listen with open mind and open palms, ready to help them in this time of transformation. Together we commune with the Hist, and prepare to receive its aid.
> 
> The ceremony always leaves me breathless. Though the Hist watches over the tribe and guides us along our needed paths, rarely does it take direct action. But during this time, Hist and spirit combine, a loving embrace followed by a great change.
> 
> Afterwords, I reintroduce the newly transformed soul to the tribe. They are greeted by all, and a great celebration will follow; for someone beloved has left us, and someone beloved has arrived."
> 
> \-- Tree-Minder Hleelieek

In the heart of squalid Bravil, directly in front of the Great Chapel of Mara, stood the statue of the Lucky Old Lady. Around her were little statues of children, reaching out to her, and she looked down with the kind eyes of a mother, her arms held out in loving welcome.

“Oh, how we wish we had a mother like her!” the war orphans said, shivering in the cold and looking up at the statue. “If we could kiss her cheek, perhaps she might grant us luck.” But the Thalmor frowned and chased them from the square, for they did not approve of children, or indeed of any living thing other than themselves.

“There is something very odd about that statue,” the Thalmor Emissary said to her Justiciars, narrowing her amber eyes. “But I can’t quite make out what it is.” And she scowled because she knew her death lurked in the shadows, for she had countless enemies within and without the Dominion, and slept with guards posted and lamps lit.

“I wish I could be as lucky as that damned old lady,” muttered the wastrel every day as he made his way to the skooma den. “Divines have been cruel to me. They owe me so much. Never been dealt a good hand in life. Whole world’s set against me. One day they’ll see. I’ll get the respect I deserve. I’ll get the Dark Brotherhood to pay a visit to everyone who’s ever laughed at me. Then they’ll see. Then they’ll know who I am.” And the hours would flit on by in the skooma den where nobody knew his name, or cared.

One night, there came to the city an Argonian, a young woman whose scales were a murky dark-green. She was a Shadowscale, one of the last living, and she had come to serve the Dark Brotherhood chapter in Bravil – but she suffered from many maladies from birth. Only part of her lungs were healthy, and her heart was prone to palpitations. She had a cherished family heirloom, for she came of a long line of Shadowscales – a dagger with a ruby rose on the pommel – but her tail bones were brittle and she sprained it often.

The Listener, Alisanne Dupre, rolled her eyes. “We cannot have you out in the field,” she said. “You have clearly been cursed by the gods. The Night Mother cannot have a Silencer who cannot move with silence, who coughs blood and grows short of breath easily, who cannot leap from roof to roof as needed. Go and do what you can to make another sort of living.”

“But a Shadowscale am I,” she cried. “I am born to this work. The Void birthed me. I live to serve Sithis.”

“Be grateful we do not take your dagger from you,” haughty Andronica told her, “for we are at a time of great need, and it is only out of respect for your foremothers that we leave you your heirloom. But we will not have you underfoot. Begone!”

“You will not trifle with me,” she replied loftily. “We were Shadowscales long before the Dark Brotherhood came to be. We will be Shadowscales long after you are gone.”

“Pah – off with you. You are among the last of your kind, perhaps the very last. We do not have the resources to rebuild the Shadowscale training facility in Archon. And if you are truly the best we may expect of the Shadowscales, perhaps it is just as well,” arrogant Cicero told her, grimacing as he looked at her from top of head to tip of tail.

So she turned and left, and walked beside the Larsius River, which served as the sewers for the city. No one else walked with her on account of the stench, but to her nose the smells were close enough to the smells of home to offer her some comfort. She began to feel a yearning deep in her Argonian heart.

“I shall return to Black Marsh, though it is so very far away,” she thought, groaning slightly as her joints ached – she had moved her leg awkwardly, at just the wrong angle. “It will do me good to visit my friends and family again. And to see the Hist again as well.” For though she was born of Sithis, all of the Saxhleel truly came from the Hist, and to the Hist they would return. Her spine of homesickness stood erect and quivering.

No inn would put her up for free, though, and she would sooner die than part with her ruby rose dagger, so she wandered into the square in front of the Great Chapel. The doors of the Chapel had been barred – the Thalmor had said it was a “religious matter”, and had placed a proscription upon religious worship “until such time as the sacerdotal practices of the city have been brought properly in line with approved Dominion doctrine.”

“No matter!” she said to herself. “The night air here in Bravil agrees with me. It is not as properly pungent as the air in Black Marsh, but it will serve. Ah, and that corner of the statue has just the right shape for my body to curl up in. I have a bedchamber of marble.” And she prepared to go to sleep – but then she heard a whisper.

“Shadowscale…”

“Is that you, O Listener Alisanne Dupre,” she muttered, carefully tucking her tail over her legs. “Too late now. You spurned me, so I shall spurn you. And I bid you goodnight!” She turned and drew her hood more tightly over her ears.

But the voice came again, as if the speaker were leaning in and somehow whispering to her from under the hood. “Shadowscale…”

“What’s this now,” she said, irritated. “Ghosts? From the Chapel Undercroft, no doubt. Well, I don’t feel like nighttime exercise at the moment, so I suppose I’ll have to go look for some other place to sleep.” And she prepared to leave.

But she felt something on her cheek, as if a hand were brushing it, and she turned to look up, and – Ah! What did she see?

She saw the eyes of the statue had grown luminous, and alive, and there was a face as well, the sad face of a sorrowful woman.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am the Lucky Old Lady.”

“Why have you disturbed my rest, then? I don’t call that very lucky for me,” the Shadowscale said crossly.

“When I was alive, I did not think at first that I was lucky, for I was born out of wedlock to a prostitute. All the children were endlessly cruel to me, and they pelted me with filth and rocks, asking me who my father was. Every night I wept in the arms of my mother, who wept herself because she was helpless. Then one day, I met a priest of Stendarr who came to ask me why I wept. I told him, and I said I did not know who my father was. He thought for a while, smiled and told me that I had kind eyes and a mouth that told no lies, so clearly I was a child of Stendarr, God of Mercy, Charity and Well-Earned Luck. From then on, I became a happy young woman. Then I gave shelter to an Imperial prince who was under a curse, and he was rude and gruff to me, but when the curse was lifted he returned and made amends. He showered me with riches, and I shared that wealth openly with everyone in the city. I lived to a ripe old age, and died in contentment.”

“You’ve just recited to me the story told about you in the book _Daughter of the Niben,”_ the Shadowscale observed.

“That is so.”

“So it’s not true, is it?”

“It is true to some. It is not true for others. It is not true at all. It is true enough.”

“I see,” the Shadowscale said politely, though she did not, and she did not believe that story. But she was too polite to say so out loud.

“In a little street not far from here,” the Lucky Old Lady said, “I can see a house. In this house, there is a woman, a struggling playwright, who lives alone with her daughter who is sick with fever. The Thalmor presence has made it difficult for troupes to perform her work, and she must finish this play soon or she will not be paid. But she is too worried about her sick daughter and about their lack of money to write properly.”

“That’s a pity,” said the polite Shadowscale.

“Far away from her, along a broader street, lives her landlord, an Imperial who has cast his lot in with the Thalmor. He has driven several tenants out of their homes already, moving in with armed soldiers to claim their paltry possessions for his own when they couldn’t pay his exorbitant rent. He pays the Thalmor for their aid, pledging them his support so they will give him theirs. He has recently increased the rent for the playwright, and on the morrow he will drive her and her daughter out into the streets. Shadowscale, Shadowscale, catalyst, agitator, many-fanged maw – will you go to the landlord, slit his throat, take the bag of coins he is counting out on his table, and bring it to the playwright? My feet are made of stone, and will not move.”

“I wish to leave this city and return to Black Marsh,” the Shadowscale said. “My tribe is waiting for me. I miss my egg-siblings, whom I have not seen for many moons. I wish to taste once again the sap of the Hist that nurtured me when I was born.”

“Shadowscale, Shadowscale, will you not help me? The playwright’s hands are so cold they cannot move, and she is weeping with worry so she cannot see the words on the paper. The child tries not to cry, for she knows her mother is burdened, but her bones ache so, and she cannot help but moan. The landlord’s lips are slick with the grease of meat, and he is drunk with red wine as he counts his many coins.”

“I don’t much like plays,” the Shadowscale complained. “The last time I went to watch a street performance I couldn’t squeeze to the front, and I barely saw anything. It’s all silliness anyway, all that prancing about on stage and make-believe, and shouting all those words at a crowd that isn’t paying attention.”

But the Lucky Old Lady looked so sad under the twin moons that the Shadowscale was sorry. “It’s getting cold tonight, and my own bones are aching as well, but I will help you do this thing.”

“Thank you, Shadowscale.”

So the Shadowscale went, and her ruby rose dagger sliced open the landlord’s throat easily enough, but the commotion drew his bodyguards into the room and she had to slay two before she could escape. She took a few wounds in the doing of it. Then she made her way to the house of the playwright, but first she filched a succulent fruit from a warehouse and placed it beside the sick daughter.

“Where did this come from?” the playwright cried out with delight. “I can pay my rent now – more than that, I can move to a better house that is not so damp!”

“I feel much better now, sweet Mother,” the daughter sighed, and drifted off into a healthful sleep of convalescence.

The Shadowscale went back to the statue, wincing at her wounds. “Well! It is curious, but even though it is still a cold night, I feel quite warm inside.”

“You have done well, my Child. Sleep now, for the sins of the unworthy have been baptized in blood and fear.” But the Shadowscale did not hear her, for she had already fallen asleep with exhaustion.

The next evening she came to the statue again. She was in high spirits, for she had seen a Thalmor Justiciar trip and fall into a canal earlier, and nearly drown before being fished out by his fellows. “I have come to bid you farewell, O Lucky Old Lady!” she cried gaily. “I am off to Black Marsh. Home I go!”

“Shadowscale, Shadowscale,” the Lucky Old Lady said, “many streets from here, I see a grieving lonely mother who has lost a son. They came here from Valenwood to find a better life for themselves, but they have found only death and misery. The Thalmor accosted him in the streets, accusing him of being a fugitive from Falinesti. Though he protested his innocence they slew him on the street, slowly and with great pain, while the people around them watched, too afraid or too callous to interfere. The mother brought her suit before the Emissary, but was beaten and thrown out onto the streets, and threatened with incarceration and torture if she spoke of this again. She has no means of support now. All she has left is vengeance. The desire for it eats away at her wounded heart.”

“Well, all right,” said the Shadowscale, who really was a very kind person. “Shall I take her another bag of gold?”

“Alas, gold will not help, for it is not gold she lacks. The hatred burns in her like rot within wood, and soon she will die from grief and pain, unless a balm is given to her. That balm is the blood of the Thalmor justiciars who killed her son. Bring to her their severed heads. This is all the justice she craves, and this will give her peace. She can leave this place and begin anew elsewhere.”

“You ask much of me,” the Shadowscale said, distraught. “The Justiciars are in their barracks, and dozens will set upon me before I can kill the right ones.”

“They are carousing now in a house of ill-repute, several streets away. You will make your own chance – you are a Shadowscale. Blood is on your blade, and behind you the Void. Will you do this for me, Shadowscale?”

“Yes,” the Shadowscale sighed.

So she went to find the place where the Justiciars were having their sport. It was easy enough to slay them in the dark alley where they had taken two barmaids, one apiece, for their pleasure. The barmaids shrieked in terror, but when they saw that the Shadowscale was busy cutting off the two Thalmor heads they moved to help her.

“Keep a lookout there! We need a larger blade than what you have, Argonian. I’ll get a chopping knife from the kitchen! Just wait!”

The Shadowscale then limped over to the house of the grieving mother, for she had taken yet more injuries in the fight, brief though it was – the Justiciars had managed to fling some magic at her. The face of the mother lit with joy as the heads were placed in front of her.

“Bless you, oh, sweet Mother bless you,” she sobbed. “Now my boy can rest easy. I shall leave tomorrow, and I shall never return to this accursed place. What… what is the payment?”

“I’m not from the Brotherhood,” the Shadowscale said truthfully. “I think they’re having their own problems, at the moment. I don’t think they’re taking on any jobs right now.”

“What can I give you for all you’ve done for me?” the woman cried, but she spoke only to a retreating shadow, for the Shadowscale was anxious to be away and did not wish to be seen coughing her lungs out in front of the old Bosmer woman.

She staggered back to the statue. “Well,” she said. “I must say, with every passing year it grows harder to be as active as my foremothers were. It is time for me to be returning to Black Marsh. I need to get stronger, and perhaps find a good male to settle down and have eggs with, so I can leave this dagger to a daughter worthier than myself.” And she caressed the ruby rose pommel on her dagger.

“Shadowscale, Shadowscale, will you not stay with me a while longer? I am lonely, and your company has been very sweet.”

“Far away, in Black Marsh, my brother is becoming my sister. He will soon go to the Tree-Minder, and together they will commune with the Hist. Before the eyes of the tribe, Hist and soul will combine, and when the newly transformed person emerges she will be welcomed by all who love her just as they loved the person she once was. A great celebration will follow, for someone beloved has gone, and someone beloved has arrived. But I will not be there, for I will not return in time.” And the Shadowscale wept a little.

“In a street near the castle, a wealthy Imperial alchemist has grown rich. With one hand he sells life-giving medicines to the poor, and with the other he takes from them more gold than they can afford. And when he turns around, with both hands he puts poisons into the wells and aqueducts serving the poor quarter, which the Thalmor do not trouble to guard properly, and so creates the sickness for which he sells the cure. Truly, he has a heart of flint. The children of the poor are hurt from birth and will remain sickly all their lives. The old and weak perish outright. But even the young and strong suffer. And he is ready with bribes if the Thalmor should come with questions. Shadowscale, Shadowscale, catalyst, agitator, many-fanged maw – will you do one more thing for me?”

“What would you ask of me?” said the Shadowscale.

“Slay this alchemist and place the proof of his evil where the authorities who investigate will find it. Even the Thalmor know that as long as they are in this world, seeking to occupy its walled towns and high places, there are some things they cannot overlook.”

So the Shadowscale went, and did as she was commanded. The alchemist had a concealed dagger about his person, coated with a potent poison, and threw it at her back before he died.

“Oh, I say! That was the unkindest cut of all,” she remarked, but he had already expired, so there was nothing more she could do.

Her Argonian blood protected her from the worst of its effects, but her head grew heavy and her breathing grew labored, and she knew she did not have much time left. She located and put on display all the evidence of the alchemist’s doings, took some healing potions for herself, and then left.

The potions helped, but not enough. She curled up at the feet of the Lucky Old Lady.

“Well, it’s done,” she said.

“You have done well, my Child,” the Lucky Old Lady said softly. “You are the only one who can Listen to me. And you have been most obedient. I am well-pleased.”

“I thought Alisanne Dupre was your Listener,” the Shadowscale said sleepily, trying to stifle a yawn, for she really was quite polite.

“She has not listened properly for some time now. And there is no one else who can hear me. Except one other… but it is not yet her time. It will not be her time for many years yet,” the Lucky Old Lady said sadly. “So I will have to wait in my loneliness, with no one to hear my words.”

“I will stay with you. I can hear your words.”

“No, Child, you must leave for Black Marsh.”

“I will stay with you always.”

So she stayed, and spoke, and told the Lucky Old Lady all about the wonders of her homeland – the towering ziggurats left by the ancient Argonians, the waterways invisible to anyone on the surface, the pyramidal xanmeers dotting the swampy landscape, the communal swaying and singing as they worshipped the Hist on important occasions.

And the Lucky Old Lady told her of many things – of the marvelous misery that was life, of what the Thalmor thought they wanted and what they really wanted, of the many ways she had been misheard or misunderstood over the long centuries by those who professed to follow her and obey her commands.

At last the Shadowscale knew she was going to die, and she told the Lucky Old Lady, “I am leaving you now.”

“I will watch over you on your journey back to the Black Marsh, sweet Child.”

“It is not to the Black Marsh I go now, Sweet Mother, but to the Void. And that is where I will find you, will I not?” And she kissed the feet of the Lucky Old Lady, and died.

And in that moment the statue fell apart, as if cloven in two by a bolt of lightning. And the Sanctuary was scourged, and Alisanne Dupre melted in a storm of magefire, and the Bravil Chapter of the Dark Brotherhood was shattered forever, and the man known as Cicero fled to Cheydinhal with the Night Mother’s coffin. It really was a very chaotic year, the 188th year of the 4th Era.

The Thalmor authorities came to inspect the statue.

“Well! This looks perfectly ghastly! Typical of Imperial cities. Beggars dying at the feet of aesthetically displeasing statues of questionable workmanship,” the Emissary sniffed. “Take this down! And cover over whatever’s beneath it – it looks like a crypt of some kind. How absolutely tasteless. Perfectly ghastly, really. What abominable taste these Imperials have. Throw _that_ on the midden heap, of course. Foul scaly vermin.”

And all was done according to her instructions. Later, a scavenger found the corpse of the Shadowscale, and undertook to carve out her heart, for Argonian hearts are prized by some disreputable alchemists for their properties. The heart, however, was never sold, for the scavenger died in the alleyways, victim of a robber’s knife. The heart solidified into an unprepossessing lump of misshapen rock.

Years later, the Last Dragonborn called her Eight Companions to her atop her mountain, and said,

****Go to Bravil, and bring me the two most precious things in the city.** **

The Eight looked at one another, shrugged, and went down the mountain, where they parted ways. Each then made his or her own way over the Jeralls or the Valus mountains, trekking south across the heartland until they reconvened at Bravil. Many were their adventures and exploits against the Aldmeri Dominion, which are recorded elsewhere. Eventually they returned to the Dovahkiin atop Snow Throat, and gave her the ruby rose dagger and the Shadowscale’s heart.

The Dovahkiin smiled, nodded, and said,

****You have rightly chosen, for in Aetherius, this Shadowscale will have her own statue of starlight in the garden of the gods. And the ruby rose will gleam in the night sky evermore, a light shining in the darkness, though the darkness understands it not.** **

* * *

Look for the helpers, the Dovahkiin says. You will always find people who are helping.


End file.
